Charges against Kurdish Youth for singing a song continue in Turkey

Some of you may remember this news from two months ago about members of a Kurdish children’s choir who are facing prison charges by Turkish prosecutors for simply singing a few old Kurdish songs. (See the MEY report here).

Just this week, the Initiative for Freedom of Expression / Antenna-TR released the following alert:

IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community

ALERT - TURKEY

6 June 2008

Three members of children’s choir face charges of “making propaganda for a
terrorist organisation” after singing Kurdish song in U.S. music festival

SOURCE: Initiative for Freedom of Expression (Antenna-TR), Istanbul

(Antenna-TR/IFEX) - Three children, members of the Diyarbakir Yenisehir Council Children’s Choir [Koma Dengê Zarokên Amedê - The Children’s Voices of Diyarbakir], will stand trial for singing a march in Kurdish while performing in the U.S. The indictment, dated 3 April 2008, seeks the imprisonment of three children under the age of 18 for up to five years each.

The choir attended the World Music Festival in San Francisco between 3 and 7 October 2007, and there sang a march in Kurdish: “Ey Raqip”.

The Diyarbakir Public Prosecutor’s office opened a case against three members of the choir: Servan Yilmaz, aged 16; Gökhan Ok, aged 17; and Veysel Mamuk, aged 16. The indictment argues that the children sang with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) flags in the background, and that the song they sang has been adopted as an official march by the PKK. [Goran's Comment: Of course, as stated in my earlier report, the so-called "PKK flags” were actually the Kurdish flag and not exactly the flag of any particular rebel group or party.]

The indictment quoted the defence statements of the children, and said that the children took to the stage in San Fransisco and sang “Ey Raqip” after their teacher, Duygu Özge Bayar, taught them the song in one day because the audience requested it.

The children’s lawyer, Baran Pamuk, noted that the song was written by the Iranian-Kurdish poet, Dildar, 68 years ago. Pamuk says: “That song was accepted as the national anthem of the Mahabad Kurdish Republic, which was proclaimed in 1946 and lasted for one year, and it is now used as an official anthem by the Northern Iraq Kurdish Federal Government. However, it is not possible to accept that a poem written 68 years ago is the propaganda tool of an organisation. The founders of the organisation in question were not even born yet at the time the poem was written. There is no mention of that organisation in the song.”

The teacher of the choir, Duygu Bayar, stated: “We shared our culture there, at the festival. We sang various songs showing the styles of Diyarbakir. Churches and the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association contributed to our repertory of songs. If performing these songs is separatism, then we are guilty of promoting separatism.”

The children are charged with “making propaganda for a terrorist organisation” and will appear in court on 9 June 2008.

For further information contact Sanar Yurdatapan at the Initiative for Freedom of Expression, Nacak Sok. 21/11, TR-34674, Istanbul, Turkey, tel:
+90 216 492 0504 / 532 7545, fax: +90 216 492 1840, e-mail:
antenna@superonline.com, sanar@antenna-tr.org, Internet:
http://www.antenna-tr.org

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Activists are still awaiting a formal response to this injustice by human rights organizations and some efforts have been made to contact local representatives in California where the children had performed. It seems more will be required in order to put an end to these ridiculous cases being brought forth by prosecutors in Turkey.

There is currently a petition online you can sign at this link.